


Grave Reflections

by TawnyOwl95



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: And Geography, Can you have Halloween fluff?, Don't trust fruit, Fluff, Halloween, Halloween traditions, M/M, Picnics, Post-Apocalypse, Prophecies, Scene: Kingdom of Wessex 537 AD (Good Omens), The author plays fast and loose with history, Things That Go Bump, Trickety-Boo Exchange, graveyards, or the wildlife, scarf sharing, trick or treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:28:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27311182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TawnyOwl95/pseuds/TawnyOwl95
Summary: Crowley doesn’t really approve of Aziraphale’s Halloween tradition, but it is an excuse for a picnic.  At midnight. In a graveyard. Still, they are the scariest things out tonight? Aren't they?
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 56
Collections: Trickety-Boo! Exchange





	Grave Reflections

**Author's Note:**

  * For [miraworos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miraworos/gifts).



> This fic is part of the Trickety-Boo 2020 Gift Exchange for  
> [Miraworos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miraworos/pseuds/miraworos)  
> based on the prompt "Aziraphale/Crowley, maybe remembering their first Halloween? or maybe Aziraphale still holds to some questionable original Halloween tradition that is inappropriate for modern times and Crowley is tickled by it?"
> 
> I sort of did both. Sort of. I really hope you like it my dear. 
> 
> Spooky level 1, mayhap edging into 2, but not by much. 
> 
> Thank you to my irl peeps for the beta.

Soul, Soul, a soul cake!

I pray thee, good missus, a soul cake!

One for Peter, two for Paul, three for Him what made us all!

Soul Cake, soul cake, please good missus, a soul cake.

An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry, any good thing to make us all merry.

One for Peter, two for Paul, & three for Him who made us all.

Traditional British song. 

  
  
  
  


The fallen leaves crunched beneath Crowley's boots. The leaves that were still clinging dramatically to life rustled overhead. 

An owl hooted, ghostly and forlorn in the chill night air. He tried not to flinch. Highgate Cemetery West would never be called pretty, but at least in daylight it could pass for romantic. At night, the Gothic columns loomed desperately out of the knotted ivy trying to drag them down. The inky maws of the Egyptian mausoleums gaped, no doubt hiding all sorts of creepy, crawling nightmares. 

A shiver trickled from the back of Crowley's neck all the way down to his toes. Spooky was all very well, in general, when it was happening to other people. Crowley preferred to be the one handing out the spooks though. Being the one spooked...well, that was very unbecoming for a demon, and he didn't care for it at all.

Every year, in order to avoid spooks, Crowley laid out a temptation of the silliest, cheesiest films he could find and a buffet of confectionery. He'd even miracle a log burning stove and fluffy blankets into his flat, and tartan ones at that, if it would have made a smidgen of difference. 

Instead, every year he found himself lurking in a graveyard near midnight. It was the least amusing type of cliche. Worse, this year the picnic basket over his arm was giving him all sorts of unwelcome flashbacks. 

The shadows in front of Crowley stirred with movement. He stepped back. His stupid corporation misbehaving in all sorts of fluttering, shivering ways. 

Crowley's grip on the basket tightened. He widened his stance. 

The shadows resolved themselves into a young woman, hurrying down the path towards him. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her bobble hat pulled down low. This didn't stop the full moon from illuminating the tears streaking her pale cheeks. Good tears though. The kind that cleansed the heart and the mind. 

The cloth bag on her shoulder was empty. She'd made her offering. Her eyes flicked suspiciously to Crowley as she skirted round him. He gave her space and tried to look unthreatening. Not an easy task for a loan, vaguely man shaped creature loitering in a cemetery at night. The consoling grin he flashed her probably didn't help.

She glared at him and quickened her pace. 

Crowley didn't know how Aziraphale managed it. 

He hoped she'd found the peace she needed at least, as well meaning and misguided as the whole endeavour was. 

The ritual, like most human rituals surrounding the dead, was more for the living than anything else. And Crowley always wondered what humans saw, on nights like this. Not because of any of that thinning of the veil bollocks. The only boundaries between this world and the supernatural was the one humans put in their heads. It was all one world. Easier though to believe there were only certain times of year when you could fall prey to it. 

Didn't stop Crowley though, did it? He caused mischief every night of the year. 

Except tonight, ironically. 

The bloody owl decided to weigh in on Crowley's thoughts so he blessed under his breath and began the climb up the hill. Old yew trees hugged the jumbled headstones in their roots. The dead did not give away space, even here where the view opened out over the Heath. The smoggy lights of North London blurred on the horizon. The graveyard creaked and sighed behind him. No need to fear, Crowley told himself, he was the scariest thing in this place. 

A twig snapped politely.

Almost.

The soft crunch of shoes on the fallen yew needles. Respectfully cautious. _I'm here_ the footsteps said, _but no bother, if you're taking a moment._

Crowley decided not to test their patience. Aziraphale had been up here since sunset. He turned round. 

“I hope you brought something warm.” Aziraphale said, still leaking an ethereal glow. There was the faintest hint of wings cut against the darkness behind him. 

Crowley squinted. “I brought cocoa.”

“Bless you.” Aziraphale sighed, worked the crick out of his neck. 

“Steady on there.”

“Terribly sorry, erm, curse you?”

“Better. Long night was it?”

“It's midnight. The rush is over.” Aziraphale took the picnic blanket from underneath Crowley’s arm and miracled away a square of the fallen leaves and twigs littering the final resting places of Beatrice Pease (1842-1903) and Raymond Fittock (1850-1911) so he could spread it out and sit down. 

“Did you get a good haul?” Crowley put down the basket, but hesitated before sitting down where he estimated Raymond's head to be.

“I'm not doing this just for the biscuits.” Aziraphale sniffed. 

Crowley lifted an eyebrow, losing a valiant battle to keep a smile from his face. There was quite a stash of biscuits, demonstrated by the neatly stacked transparent tupperware boxes and novelty tins by Aziraphale's feet. 

“I’m not!” The angel persisted. “People come here to ask me to pray for their loved ones. The biscuits are just a charming cultural quirk associated with that. It’s a tradition. The origin of trick or treating, I’ll have you know.”

“Oh, I know. And you’re in fancy dress as well.” 

"Fancy dress?" 

"You're still all lit up, _angel_."

"Oh!" Aziraphale's light faded until it was only the moonlight making him shine. He still looked beautiful though. Fragile and other, despite the adorable little pout of his bottom lip. "I don't do it for the biscuits," he said again. 

“Well, you don’t do it for the ambience.” Crowley, leaned back on one arm, swept the other out to take in the dangling tree branches and the crooked gravestones. It was bloody cold too. 

“I thought you were a big spooky fan?” 

Crowley huffed as a wool scarf, soft and blue, dropped around his neck.

“Well yes, I am, obviously but you…” He shifted self-consciously. 

“They are just bones, Crowley.” Aziraphale sat down next to him. 

Crowley wasn’t going to give up his grumbling that easy. Every year Aziraphale set himself to indulge the humans in this nonsense. Not always in Highgate, it had been going on longer than that, but somewhere remote, somewhere those in need could creep to without being seen and without having to explain. Those who were truly torn up with grief and guilt always knew where to find the Angel of Death. _They need the reassurance_ , Aziraphale persisted every year when Crowley tried to make him a better offer, and this year there had been the addition of, _Lord knows they get very little from Heaven_.

Which had warmed Crowley’s shrivelled demonic soul about as much as the vanilla scented scarf he was now trying to look cool wearing. He tossed one of the dangling ends rakishly back over his shoulder. “Last time I was in a graveyard I got some bad news.”

Aziraphale glanced up from pouring the cocoa from its flask. “Oh, yes, I'm sorry.”

“Turned out alright didn't it?” Crowley flashed his teeth. As Aziraphale's own smile fluttered into being, Crowley found his expression sticking. True happiness edged cautiously through his preferred cool indifference. 

“Yes.” Aziraphale glanced away. The spell broke. “There you are, my dear.” 

A gently steaming mug was put into Crowley's hands. A fleeting moment of skin brushing skin and then Aziraphale had settled back, legs crossed, cradling his own mug. Crowley shivered again. Not really from cold this time, but because his nerves still trembled from the closeness. There was more of it these days. Experimental forays into each other’s personal spaces. Curious advances and retreats, hands lingering where they’d previously been too afraid to even touch. 

Crowley liked that. At first he thought he’d be frustrated that after all they’d been through they were still going at Aziraphale’s pace. Turned out Aziraphale’s pace, when there was no longer the fear of retribution from head office ticking away the seconds, was comfortable. Who’d have thought that freedom to act could be so terrifying. How did the humans carry the weight of it and not go mad?

Crowley sipped his cocoa. Not too sweet. Aziraphale was busy shuffling boxes, taking off lids and inhaling the fragrances of baking. "Hmm, lavender in these I think."

Crowley accepted a biscuit he had no intention of eating at the moment, and tried not to obviously snuggle down into the scarf that smelled of dust, and paper, and baking, and angel. 

"Do you remember the fires?" Aziraphale asked. "Hmm. Lavender and lovage." He brushed crumbs from his knee. 

"Fires?" 

"At Samhain."

Crowley did. Huge bonfires built on Thorney Island, just upstream of London, where King Arthur's Court was wintering. Crowley had been sulking over being left alone to work in damp places. His armour had been chaffing too, so he'd traded it in for something soft, flowing and feminine. She, as he had become then, had ridden into the castle's courtyard with the Avalon Priestesses. 

The fire heat had been scorching, the revels in full chaotic madness. Antlers and horns and claws and fangs casting shadows on the courtyard walls. 

Upstairs the court hadn't been much calmer. Guinevere and her ladies were bobbing for apples. They shrieked and splashed as each lady checked the apple for the mark of their true love. 

Soul cakes were already building up from petitioners brave enough or tipsy enough to knock on the King's door. Even then Aziraphale had been the one to accept them, the one to listen. He'd been stationed by the door with Gawain and pretended not to recognise Crowley as the priestesses came in. At the time that had suited her just fine. The easy companionship of Rome had been a long time ago, after all. 

"I remember the Samhain fires," Crowley said, thinking of the wood burner that could be in his flat right now. Of blankets and strawberry flavoured candy skulls and, Satan help him, snuggles that smelled as good as the scarf around his neck. 

"Although a smaller one might be more appropriate." Aziraphale said. 

"Are you cold angel?" Crowley asked, each word saturated in innocence. 

"Now you mention it." Aziraphale wriggled his shoulders. "Appear to have given away my scarf."

"You what?" Crowley laughed, turning to face him. 

This time Aziraphale's pout was to keep his smile under control. It failed. "Be a dear."

Crowley rolled his eyes on principle and conjured up a fire. 

Aziraphale shifted closer to it, and Crowley as well. “They were excellent celebrations,” he said.

“Amazing costumes,” Crowley added, also shifting closer. Then, because he was suddenly the victim of too much hard won free will and it'd be a shame to waste it, he adjusted the scarf so he could wrap one of the ends round Aziraphale's neck. 

Aziraphale stiffened, eyes darting over Crowley's lenses in a way that suggested he could see right through both them, and the demon hiding behind them. 

_Too fast, too fast_ began tap dancing crazily round the inside of Crowley's skull. Then Aziraphale's cheeks darkened slightly. He moved closer still, adjusting his end of the scarf so it hung more comfortably. 

“Did You ever bob for apples?” Aziraphale asked, voice slightly higher than normal. 

“Prefer to stay away from all apple related things. Don’t want to be too on the nose.” _And I always knew who my true love was. Even when I didn’t want to admit it._

“You know, even after all this time, I can’t always tell whether you are genuinely being obnoxious or just putting it in on to infuriate me.” Aziraphale lifted an eyebrow at him, the challenge not quite hiding the warmth behind it. 

“The latter, angel, always.” And Aziraphale didn't know Crowley had stood in the shadows watching Guinevere coax Gawain away from the door. How Aziraphale had nearly been captured too. How Crowley had wondered what Aziraphale would look like with a damp fringe and eyelashes, holding out a ripe, red fruit with Crowley's mark on it. Aziraphale didn't know how, as time had rolled on, Crowley’s wonderings became more physical, desperate and visceral. And, someone help him, romantic. 

The owl was back. Crowley fancied he saw her gliding across the moon as she cried out. The shadow passed over his face and the owl dipped beneath the tree line. 

“I let one of the priestesses to scy for me once.” Aziraphale said quietly. 

“Really?" Of course no reason why he shouldn't have. Just it made something tickle deep within the travelling chest of Crowley's memories. The ones he had safely packed away. The ones he thought he had no more need for. 

“Terribly silly, but I’ve always been interested in prophecies, and I just wondered what she might say.” Aziraphale smiled nervously and blew on his hands. "It really is cold."

“And what did she say?” Crowley tried to sound calm, and almost managed it. Not quite though, judging by the confused glance Aziraphale shot him. 

"It was that night on Thorney Island, after we'd fallen out over the Arrangement the first time. You arrived with her. The short, curvaceous woman with a stare that could cut like glass."

"Not Creepy Owl Girl." Crowley's blood slowed. The chest lid was open now, memories curling out like smoke. Memories of standing on the frozen mud at the edge of the road that led to London, huddling close to a horse to keep warm. She'd approached him with a bowl of water, a serene and too wise smile. 

A lock of Crowley's hair floated on the inky, moon light shadowed surface of that water as she'd whispered;

_“Fire is drowned._

_Water in flame._

_They are the mirror_

_Two halves of the same_.”

Crowley tried to remember more of that night. Aziraphale had been ignoring him so Crowley had resolutely ignored Aziraphale. Had there been a moment though when the angel's eyes had met Crowley's over a plump shoulder cloaked in Avalon blue? Black hair braided with mottled feathers spilling down Creepy Owl Girl's back?

"I'm sure Creepy Owl Girl wasn't actually her name, Crowley." Aziraphale tutted. 

It wasn't, and even if he could remember it, Crowley wouldn't be about to invoke it. 

"What did she tell you?" Crowley's voice was rough. Hard. 

Aziraphale frowned at him. "You're making me nervous, Crowley."

"Am I too late?" The undergrowth shivered and a young woman eased her way out of the bracken clutching a basket. Her hood was pulled up against the chill, shadowing the top part of her face. 

“Not at all, my dear.” 

As Aziraphale stood and got brighter, Crowley allowed himself to sink into shadow. He did his best to take the picnic rug and thermos with him, lest it ruin the atmosphere. 

“Not much of a baker so I made these.” She offered her basket. It was full of apples, designs carved into the peel. The apple flesh was stark, bone white through the blood red skin. “For both of you.” Her hood turned towards Crowley. “It’s good you both have company. Out here and all alone for so long.”

“Who are you here for?" Aziraphale asked. 

She smiled, the flickering fire illuminating a tantalising glimpse of her chin. “You.”

“But who do you wish me to pray for?” Aziraphale asked. 

“Oh, I thought you and your friend could keep these prayers for yourselves.” She pushed back her hood slightly so she could look up at him. 

"Well, thank you, my dear." Aziraphale's laugh fluttered uncertainly. He glanced back at Crowley. Crowley concentrated on the girl, and the way the moonlight shone in her eyes like the reflections on water. She smiled at them both, calm and too confident for someone out here alone at night. She didn't so much leave as melt back into the shadowed scenery. 

Crowley had thought he was getting warm by the fire, but this shiver was bone marrow deep. The owl hooted again and the cemetery went deathly still. 

"Odd." Aziraphale returned to the blanket. He put the basket down between them and rubbed his hands together again. 

"What did the priestess tell you?" Crowley asked. 

"Hardly matters now." Aziraphale's eyes flicked to Crowley, then away again. 

Crowley leaned forward quickly, catching Aziraphale's shaking hands in his. "Angel?"

Aziraphale's gaze swept over Crowley's face then back to their joined hands. He laced his fingers with Crowley's and spoke very quietly, in a language Crowley hadn’t heard for a very, very long time.

_“Fire is drowned._

_Water in flame._

_They are the mirror_

_Two halves of the same.”_

Aziraphale laughed. “That’s what she said to me. Haven’t thought anything of it for a while, but in light of recent events.”

“In light of recent events.” Crowley was cold. Freezing. He released Aziraphale and sat back. “Pick an apple.”

“What happened to being so very on the nose?” Aziraphale challenged. He worried his lip though, staring into the patch of darkness where the young woman had ceased to be. 

“Are you genuinely being difficult, or just putting it on to infuriate me?" Crowley snapped. 

Aziraphale squared his shoulders. He didn’t look. Didn’t blink. He grabbed an apple from the basket, cradling it in his hands so neither of them could see it. “Now you.” He lifted his chin.

Crowley’s heart thrashed wildly against his ribs. He snatched the first apple his hand touched. No thought, no room for any magic to work it’s way in. He didn’t look. 

“On three?” Aziraphale suggested. 

“Actually on three? Not three and then go?” 

“I don’t bloody care, just show me!” Aziraphale cried. 

Crowley held out his apple. Aziraphale gasped. He turned his round too. 

Aziraphale’s had a snake on it, its tongue flicking out. Sunglasses were curved on it's nose. That must have been fiddly Crowley managed to think through teh blood pumping in his skull. The noise he made was normally associated with dolphins. 

Aziraphale glanced at his own apple. He was pale when his wide eyes met Crowley's. "Look at yours."

Crowley turned his own apple slightly so he could see it too. Good rendition of a gladius. The flames were pretty amart too. They must have been tricky as well. 

He supposed he could appreciate the effort. When his pulse had settled down, anyway. 

“Spooky.” Aziraphale laughed. It was hollow in the too empty graveyard. 

"There's a fire back at mine." Crowley said quickly. "You can bring the biscuits, and the cocoa."

"Bugger the cocoa, my dear. Is there any whisky?" 

"There is now." Crowley clicked his fingers. "And blankets." He swallowed. "Soft ones, tartan, if you wanted to…?" 

"Well, we have had quite a fright. I mean do you? Want to?" 

As if Crowley would ever say no with those big old pleading angel eyes eating him up. He lunged for Aziraphale's hand and miracled them both back to his flat. 

After a while another distant click of fingers was heard and with a pop the forgotten picnic blanket vanished. The fire went out, plunging the cemetery back into darkness. 

The wind sighed, the trees creaked and bones resettled in the earth. An owl circled under the moon and flew off into the night. 


End file.
